Wednesday, February 4, 2009

In this birds eye view you can see that we but a new window in the eating area and turned the two double hungs into on big single hung on the back wall. We also got rid of the cabinet return on the north wall and made those cabinets be counter depth. You can see the deep tall pantry cabinet in the sun room near the spiral stair. In this version we have more pantry and bottom cabinets then we figure we need but not enough upper cabs but Irene thinks we can make do.

Here's a shot of the fridge wall. You see how we have room for the coffee pot and toaster oven over here. Not sure if a 2' deep upper cabinet is going to be useful though. The funky cabinet to the left of the fridge is an attempt to make a fancy china cabinet (remember I am doing all of this with a $30 program).Here's the stove wall... We added cabinets over the hood and shelves to the right and moved the microwave away from the stove. I like this a lot better than what we had in version 1.0

Here's an idea someone gave us with having the fridge at an angle in the corner. We don't think this is ideal because of all the dead space behind the fridge.

A buddy of mine made this sketch. Don't like this one so much because it loses one of the windows and has the tall skinny pantry cabinets along the back wall.

The same person made this sketch also. We really like the added window in the eating area and the built-in style banquet seating. We can add storage to the banquet also and because the bench is only on 2 sides there is easy access for old folks to get to the table. Not sure if the prep sink out on the end like that is going to be in the way or not.

Most folks are telling us that we should move the wall the stove is on another 4' into that bedroom to make a 'real' sized kitchen. I have to admit that that is a tempting idea but I'm not sure if we could do it structurally. That would off set it from the bearing wall below by like 5' which can't be a good thing.

3 comments:

Have you given thought to where the baby’s highchair will go? It’s pretty essential to have one for ages 6 months to about 2 years. There are many new models available now as opposed to the “stand alone” ones that almost everyone had when your generation was (were?) babies. Most of the new ones I’ve seen, though, fit onto a regular chair so if you plan to go with that type, make sure you have at least one chair in your dining area (as opposed to all built in banquet seating). When our kids were little, we had a portable baby seat that hooked onto the table itself but haven’t seen any like that lately. Other random kitchen thoughts: 1) I’ve always found it to be very helpful to have a solid surface (e.g., countertop) within arms reach of the refrigerator and pantry in addition to the stove. Maybe your kitchen is small enough that it won’t be a problem, though. 2) How high is the ceiling in the kitchen? In your version 1 drawings, I thought the French doors looked disproportionately small, squeezed between the tall pantry cabinet and the two tall windows. Could the French doors be taller or the windows lower so they’d line up at the top? May be a moot point if you move the pantry and/or go with one window on that wall. 3) Might it be possible to have the refrigerator on the same wall as the stove and maybe the pantry too? That might allow them all to look “built in” without any of them sticking out into the room by themselves. Not sure if that would work if you put countertops in between which you’d probably need. 4) If your dishwasher isn’t next to the sink, don’t you have to worry about dripping water over the floor after you rinse dishes off and go to put them into the dishwasher?

Either my friend read your post this morning, or there's something cosmic in the air because exactly the type of "strap on" high chair seat you're talking about!

On your other thoughts: 1: I definitely agree with this, and there's that corner area to set things down out of the fridge, or after grocery shopping,staging on the way in. 2. Ceiling is 10' and we would like to match up the top of the doors with the windows.. We're not sure how much window we can have along that wall because it needs some shear strength, but possibilities are tall french doors to match, or (preferable, but less likely to be approved) a transom window above the doors. 3. Hmm, counter space on either side of the stove is really important and the stove is counter depth, so nothing sticking out there at all. Having a pantry or other cabinets the same depth as the fridge is probably what we'll do. 4. this is a generational thing - dishwasher generations, that is. The newer ones don't require pre-rinsing, and in fact discourage it because it cuts down on the water savings for the effefient new models. We'd need a trash can in that area for scraping dishes off, but no happily no rinsing. thanks for all your thoughts, and please keep positive thoughts in your head that the kithen is done before the little one is too big for a high chair!!